Mainstream Media’s Fall from Grace… It was just over a year ago that Investor’s Business Daily ran an editorial about the "old media" losing it’s way and the resulting rise of blogs and othernew media. It’s evenmore compelling now. An excerpt:

The evidence is everywhere: plummeting newspaper circulation and industry consolidation, as demonstrated by the purchase of publisher Knight Ridder by McClatchy Newspapers; the falling viewership of network news broadcasts; the growing angst among journalism professionals over what went wrong. It’s not that complicated, actually. At a time of unprecedented media options — from blogs to talk radio to cable TV — the mainstream media has clung to its old ways. While the new media was learning to excel at connecting directly with people, the establishment media was perfecting its penchant for "navel-gazing" and distancing itself from "the everyday concerns of readers." Liberal bias certainly played a role. The stories that most excite mainstream journalists tend… Read More

For today’s Commentary, we feature a great column from Jonathan Garthwaite, the Editor-In-Chief of Townhall.com, a great website for conservative thought…

NANNY STATE, U.S.A.

This week San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban plastic grocery bags from city supermarkets and drug stores. San Francisco generates an estimated 180 million plastic bags each year, and the city counsel wants them gone. Grocery shoppers will have to find an alternative within six months.

Reducing the number of nonbiodegradable plastic bags tangled in neighborhood streets and piling up in landfills for hundreds of years is a noble undertaking, but San Francisco’s government imposed bag ban is one more in a series of nanny state edicts from government upon the governed.

What’s a "nanny state"? If you want a dictionary… Read More

For today’s Commentary, we feature a great column from Jonathan Garthwaite, the Editor-In-Chief of Townhall.com, a great website for conservative thought…

NANNY STATE, U.S.A.

This week San Francisco became the first U.S. city to ban plastic grocery bags from city supermarkets and drug stores. San Francisco generates an estimated 180 million plastic bags each year, and the city counsel wants them gone. Grocery shoppers will have to find an alternative within six months.

Reducing the number of nonbiodegradable plastic bags tangled in neighborhood streets and piling up in landfills for hundreds of years is a noble undertaking, but San Francisco’s government imposed bag ban is one more in a series of nanny state edicts from government upon the governed.

What’s a "nanny state"? If you want a dictionary… Read More

Anyone involved in politics in LA County knew Tom Martin. He was always Bob Beverly’s guy. When ever you needed something from the South Bay lawmaker you spoke with him. He later worked for GOP County Supervisor Don Knabe. R.I.P. See article here.… Read More

When a young person is elected to office, some people see the future of our democracy. Others see unrelenting ambition, somehow a bad thing.

It is a constant battle for young people in politics to balance the perceptions of the older generations. Too often youth and ability and commitment are mistaken for bully tactics. While there might be merit to this perception once in while, most of the time it’s just because of an… Read More

Funds in the possession of the government at every level must be treated with the utmost care. After all, these are not moneys freely given into the custody of federal, state and local officials. On the contrary, government coffers are filled, by and large, by money coercively taken from people in the form of many different taxes. For fiscally responsible policy makers, this burden weighs heavily, as they ask themselves, before every vote taken to spend or commit these dollars, "Is this spending necessary?" or, "Is it right to spend money we have taken by force on this particular spending project?" A principled conservative policy-maker would look at every spending proposal, and ask, "Could this money be better spent by an individual?" After that, they might ask, "Is this spending something that should be taking place not at my level of government but perhaps a level of government that is closer to the people?" But perhaps the trickiest part for policy makers is to avoid the temptation to throw principled fiscal policy out the window as opportunities come along to supplant… Read More

Funds in the possession of the government at every level must be treated with the utmost care. After all, these are not moneys freely given into the custody of federal, state and local officials. On the contrary, government coffers are filled, by and large, by money coercively taken from people in the form of many different taxes. For fiscally responsible policy makers, this burden weighs heavily, as they ask themselves, before every vote taken to spend or commit these dollars, "Is this spending necessary?" or, "Is it right to spend money we have taken by force on this particular spending project?" A principled conservative policy-maker would look at every spending proposal, and ask, "Could this money be better spent by an individual?" After that, they might ask, "Is this spending something that should be taking place not at my level of government but perhaps a level of government that is closer to the people?" But perhaps the trickiest part for policy makers is to avoid the temptation to throw principled fiscal policy out the window as opportunities come along to supplant… Read More

The answer is: It all depends on how sick or disabled you are.

Assisted Suicide is surely an emotional issue. AB 374 would allow doctors to help kill their patients. It has never passed in the legislature, but this year the Speaker is pulling out all the stops to pass it.

A look at the groups that support legalizing assisted suicide in California includes the usual suspects like the ACLU and California NOW. You can see the list below. Also, several homosexual rights groups are supporting the bill. (Maybe people are genetically born to committingsuicide rather than it really being a choice?) One group really stands out. It is the California Association of Physician Groups (CAPG). This group has as its members many managed care groups. They include the Sutter Medical Group, the Northern and Southern Permanente Medical Group, the Cedars-Sinai Medical Group and many more. See complete list here. Health Net of California is … Read More